Karratha Amateur Swimming Club laps up award at Pilbara championships

The Karratha Amateur Swimming Club showed off its talent pool after being crowned club champion at the recent 2024 Pilbara Swimming Championships. Held at the Karratha Leisureplex on November 22-24, the Hancock Prospecting 2024 Pilbara Swimming Championships featured keen swimmers across nine clubs from the Gascoyne, Kimberley and Pilbara. Accumulating a total of 1034.5 points, the Karratha Amateur Swimming Club talent was exhibited with numerous swimmers making State age times. “We broke some Pilbara records and lots of personal bests, so all in all, it was a great weekend,” Karratha Amateur Swimming Club head coach Briana Crisp said. “We had numerous kids participate in the Splash and Dash event — which is in conjunction to the championships — kids have a go and get that first taste of racing. “We had probably somewhere between 30 and 40 kids participate over the weekend, which is about half of our club.” Also performing well over the weekend were the Broome Barracudas, the runner-up club champion with 934.5 points. The Cudas also claimed the handicap champion title, calculated based on the number of swims and swimmers competing. Crisp said the Hedland Amateur Swimming Club was in a regrowth year, with hard work and commitment paying off. “They have athletes making age and junior State championships, as well as athletes that are part of the Northern Swimming Academy, which is basically our talent verified development program that we have here in the Pilbara.” Also paramount to the Pilbara Swimming Championships was a visit from triple Olympian and Olympic gold medallist Brianna Throssell, meeting with athletes, sharing her experiences and offering support. “We were very thankful to have Brianna Throssell attend on Friday evening and Saturday morning, she was actually our guest speaker at our opening ceremony,” Crisp said. “That was a highlight for all of the swimmers, especially since she’s just off her Paris campaign and the Paris Olympics.” Back in the pool, the Karratha Amateur Swimming Club is gearing up six State age swimmers for a staging camp in December. “The State ages are our benchmark competition for those guys to transfer their State and international times,” Crisp said. “This will be the first time that we’re able to take a relay down too. “Over the Pilbara champs weekend we had four boys in the same bracket drop their relay time far enough to get into the open relay, which is a huge win for us.” Club champion 1st Karratha Amateur Swimming Club: 1034.5 points 2nd Broome Barracudas Swimming Club: 934.5 points 3rd Exmouth Amateur Swimming Club: 749 points Handicap champion 1st Broome Barracudas 2nd Karratha Amateur Swimming Club 3rd Tom Price Amateur Swimming Club